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mj12games.com/forum → Posts by mj12games
Mulling over some ideas for a "fleet design challenge", in which contestants are asked to design a fleet, developing X ship designs using Y parameters. We might then consider a virtual tournament or somesuch.
Would anyone be interested in such a thing?
I'm planning on randomizing the system damage and using the hyperdrive system to represent the anti-grav generators (lose them and either bug out or crash into the planet).
I'd be interested to see what you come up with for randomization.
Tracking would have to be starship-based, and not a weapon trait, as the results of a Stealth roll apply to all weapons on the attacking ship.
IMHO you should put some screens on the front arc and just use a single shield rating all around. Being harder to damage on the front was due to extra armour after all.
Ah, but the mechanic in BFG is identical to directional shielding in Starmada.
The one thing I DO need is regenerating screens -- which will help with adaptations from Squadron Strike, too.
Also, you need some sort of anti fighter/seeker weapon on there to represent the turrets.
D'oh!
At the moment, there is no direct conversion from Unity to Fleet Ops. I do have tentative plans for an update to Fleet Ops, however.
FWIW, here's the final ship list for the updated Klingon Armada. Shouldn't be any surprises in here.
Long live the SUE edition!
I was just hoping to call it "Starmada". But if SUE makes you happy... 
RE: Screens - I really like the current incarnation of screens/armour. Do we need a weapon trait that counters it? I guess catastrophic and kinetic doing extra damage to it just keeps it consistent with how those traits are affected by all the other defenses.
About the only traits I can think might be useful are:
1) Weapons that do 2x (or 3x) damage to screens, but normal damage once screens are gone.
2) Weapons that bypass screens altogether.
I'm thinking really high levels of Stealth might get annoying to deal with. Fire control somewhat mitigates Countermeasures, as does high accuracy, but what about stealth?
Stealth is more correctly equated with Shields than with Countermeasures, IMHO. And in that respect, while high levels of Stealth might be annoying to the attacker, Stealth becomes less efficient the more you use.
Stealth 1 is equivalent to Shields 1, and takes 30% less space.
Stealth 2 is equivalent to Shields 1.8, and takes 24% less space.
Stealth 3 is equivalent to Shields 2.5, and takes 17% less space.
Stealth 4 is equivalent to Shields 3.1, and takes 10% less space.
Stealth 5 is equivalent to Shields 3.6, and takes 2% less space.
Stealth 6 is equivalent to Shields 4, and takes 5% MORE space.
Updated Drydock to v1.01 to fix errors identified by murtalianconfederacy.
*adds FASA's Star Trek and AoG's Turning Point to his list*
I absolutely LOVED FASA's Star Trek RPG and STCS. I miss them both... *sniff*
When it comes to point cost I honestly don't see an issue.
Point cost is the ONLY issue. The game couldn't care less whether you are allowed to mount 10 weapons or 1000 weapons on a given hull, so long as the cost of bringing either ship to the table is balanced. Space units are a distant second in terms of importance.
1. Make non-launcher seekers externally mounted.
2. Require seeking weapons to be under the launching ships control.
3. Require seekers to be launched from a magazine, and the number of mounted launchers then controls the seeker limit.
You need to remember the issue at hand isn't "Seekers", but "weapons with the Expendable trait." I know for the purposes of the universes you are wanting to simulate they are one and the same, but in game terms, they are not. You can have unlimited-use seeking weapons, and you can have expendable direct-fire weapons.
Because why should everyone else have all the fun?
Imperial OVERLORD-class Battlecruiser (235)
Screens: 4-3-2-1
Hull: 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Engines: 4-3-2-1
Weapons: 20-15-10-5
Shields: 17-13-9-5
-Fwd: 5-4-3-2-1
-Port: 4-3-2-1
-Stbd: 4-3-2-1
-Aft: 4-3-2-1
Weapons Battery (4-8-12) 1×4+/1/1
AC ☐☐☐☐| BD ☐☐☐☐| CE ☐☐☐☐| DF ☐☐☐☐ // (8)
Lance Battery (4-8-12) 1×4+/1/1 (Gid; Mdl)
ABCD ☐☐ // (1)
Standard Torpedo (MA 6) 1×2+/1/3
G ☐☐ // (1)(or thoughts by a Rules Lawyer)
Uh oh...
Star Frontiers, Star Warriors, Car Wars, OGRE, Star Fleet Battles (not Federation Commander), Silent Death, Babylon 5 Wars, Battletech (briefly), Babylon 5 ACTA, Starmada, Task Force Zeta, Starfire, Full Thrust. (Think that's all.)
Oh no... you opened the "List of Games Played" box...
If you focus ONLY on starship/starfighter tactical games: FASA's Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat Simulator was my first exposure, via the Star Trek RPG. From there, I was hooked. Moved on to Silent Death, Star Strike, Star Warriors, Full Thrust, A Sky Full Of Stars, Star Fleet Battles/Federation Commander, Star Frontiers, Noble Armada, Bab5 (ACTA), never actually played B5W but I do have AoG's Turning Point Fleet Action game, Battlestar Galactica and The Last Starfighter (FASA, both essentially the same game), Star Blazers, Battlefleet Gothic, Hard Vacuum, Arclight, Squadron Strike, even the Spelljammer War Captain's Companion, not to mention a host of online-only rulesets like Minimal Space Combat, Generic Space Combat II, and Slag!. I'm probably missing some.
I do feel that some things are still missing - Regeneration (I mean, what's good sci-fi without organic ships right?), AE screens (I love them and hate them at the same time), expanded tech levels (+/-2 just seems kind of restrictive), Starship/Fighter exclusive weapons (What do you mean that spinal mounted ship-killer cannon targeted my highly agile fighter flight?!), traits that affect Screens, and Cinematic Movement as an optional movement rule.
Regeneration will probably be back sooner rather than later. Honestly, I was running out of room.
AE Screens -- you mean "X number of shield points which you assign to the various defensive arcs"?
Expanded Tech Levels -- I have no objection to these in principle. You mean having more than 2 levels up/down, and not more than a max of 200% and minimum of 50%, right?
Starship/Fighter Exclusive -- will be back.
Traits that affect Screens -- need playtesting.
Cinematic Movement -- I figured it was encompassed by the rules for Etheric Drag and Graded Turns, but I'm happy to put together something "official".
And then there's the things I'm terribly divided on - 4 vs 6 defensive arcs (love it & hate it), the range-based/variable ROF/IMP/DMG traits and increased hits/IMP (it a flexibility vs complicated issue to me), Anti-Fighter Batteries (like the Starmada X concept, but don't think that they alone would cut it in a more fighter/seeker-heavy universe) - maybe allowing more than 1 occurrence of them (2 AFB means 2 fighter kills on a 1? Would require a bit of recosting).
4 defensive arcs -- you can thank/blame Ken Burnside for that one. Frankly, if I hadn't settled on 4 arcs, there wouldn't be any at all. Six was just too much. I like 4, and it's not fiddly at all in practice... I was convinced after playtesting Grand Fleets on a hexgrid (which only has four arcs for both weapons and defense).
Anti-fighter batteries are simply a re-implementation of the rule prior to Admiralty. I decided there was no need to have "active" AFBs, since you could just design a range-3 weapon with Dfn/Pnp to achieve the same result.
And things that I think could be removed - probes and shuttlecraft; concepts brought in with the SFU and have a bit more of a specialized feel to them (more cinematic and less tactical).
I like the tactical use of probes -- suggested by someone on this forum whose name escapes me. But yeah, shuttlecraft are there for simulation purposes, and not much else.
Thanks for your comments!
Personally, I prefer the larger number of smaller ships. But to each his own. 
It's amazing to me that, 23+ years later, I'm still fighting hull-size-creep. The early versions of Starmada had a hard cap of 12 hull points.
The books have arrived, and will start shipping tomorrow.
I don't see why both couldn't exist in the same universe. Expendable and Ammo x1 are nearly identical, but not quite.
I don't like how you can reduce any side's rating as opposed to being forced to reduce the side that got pounded. (Makes sense for shields, not armor).
Not necessarily related to your topic, but to answer the (unasked) question:
You are allowed to take the damaged directional shield from any facing for two reasons: (1) power can be rerouted from one side of the ship to another, and (2) the damage location results represent the cumulative effect of damage over time, and not necessarily the result of the specific attack for which you rolled the "6".
That being said, I can support an optional rule that would require the defending player to reduce the affected shield rating by at least 1.
Shields have to be reduced in the following order {facing, directly opposite, then evenly across the remaining two}.
Why directly opposite?
I do not believe a case has been made that Expendable is unbalanced or "wrong". (That could happen, but it hasn't happened yet. ) Reasons why I believe the point value is fine as-is:
1) The same numbers have been in use (more or less) since 2008.
2) The discount (in terms of ORAT) progresses from 50% to 90%, with an average of around 75%. Most ships have the opportunity to fire their weapons at least four times per game, so charging a quarter of what an unlimited weapon would cost seems reasonable.
The problem, as I see it, is that the flat 80% discount on space means you can mount a metric crap-ton of cheap weapons on a middling-sized hull. But this has ALWAYS been the case, yet no one has ever done it. Why? Because (a) it's not fun and (2) you won't win that way.
That being said, with the introduction of seeking weapons, I believe Expendable (and Ammo) will become more and more desirable as a way of modeling specific universes. So I'm not opposed to coming up with simple methods to discourage their abuse.
Regardless, the conversation so far has been nothing but theoretical. I don't want to consider modifications to point costs until some models have hit the table.
I have been wondering if it's not worth stipulating that at least 50% of a ship's ORAT must come from non-expendable sources.
Looks like they have the same weapons. But I can't even begin to decipher how the ACTA stats relate to those from B5W.
Here is an initial stab at re-implementing the Ammo rule from SAE.
Ammunition is tracked for each battery, not per weapon mount. Unless otherwise noted, a weapon battery has unlimited ammunition. Batteries with limited ammunition have the amount listed in the battery display, just below the arc designations. The number given indicates the maximum number of times weapons in the battery may be fired (e.g. “Ammo: 10” indicates that the weapons in the battery may be fired up to a total of 10 times). Regardless of how much ammo is available, each weapon in the battery may only be fired once per game turn.
Each time a weapon in the battery is fired, reduce the ammunition value by 1. Once the ammo value has reached zero, the battery is out of ammunition, and its weapons may not be used any further. (Note that one point of ammo is spent for each weapon fired, not per to-hit die rolled; e.g. when a weapon with a ROF value of 3 is fired, one point of ammo is used, not three.)
Ammo = 1x Weapons: Multiplier x0.2 (same as Expendable)
Ammo = 2x Weapons: Multiplier x0.3
Ammo = 3x Weapons: Multiplier x0.4
etc.
Batteries equipped with Ammo use the same hull size modifier as Expendable weapons.
Quality stuff here.
I am curious: I don't have B5Wars, but I do have ACTA Babylon 5. Is one considered more accurate in reflecting the source material than the other? I know the game systems are vastly different, but (for example) does an EA Hyperion cruiser have the same weapons loadout in each?
I've come to realize the crux of this discussion is the Expendable trait, and not Seeking weapons. Clearly, the two will go hand-in-hand in a lot of settings, but the concerns raised here are really about the former. I don't know if that changes anything, just a light bulb that went off in my head.
I personally believe the fighter/drone launch limits are a bit restrictive to apply for ALL expendable weapons on a ship. I think a more realistic place to start would be to limit a ship to firing a number of expendable weapons per turn equal to its hull size, and work from there.
Couple things to keep in mind:
1) In order to get your 3-space-unit missiles, you have to give them a movement allowance of 4, and a single 60-degree firing arc. You can mount a lot of them, but they will be almost trivially easy to outrun or outmaneuver.
2) Each hit scored by defensive fire will eliminate as many as 15 potential damage points.
I'm not suggesting seeking weapons cannot be abused -- they certainly can, and it's possible a limiting rule or two will need to be enacted. But so can direct-fire weapons. On a hull-8 ship with an engine rating of 5, I can mount 1000 range-9 1x6+/1/1 (Exp) weapons.
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